While BC held UNC scoreless for the first six innings, the Tar Heels eventually took the lead in the seventh inning. (Sarah Fleming / Heights Editor)
Jake Knapp is one of the best pitchers in the nation, sporting a 2.14 ERA. Boston College pitcher A.J. Colarusso, meanwhile, doesn’t even sniff the top 200 in the category.
For the first six innings of BC baseball’s ACC Tournament quarterfinal game against No. 3-seed North Carolina, though, Colarusso was just as effective as Knapp—maybe even more so.
Colarusso pumped his fist in the air in the bottom of the fifth inning as he dealt his seventh strikeout of the evening, handing UNC its fifth straight scoreless frame.
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Colarusso was saving the Eagles in a game when their offensive production was extremely limited.
Unfortunately for BC, good pitching can’t last forever.
Arms get tired. And as soon as Colarusso came out, the Eagles’ hopes of a win started dissipating into thin air.
“Playing the top-eight national seed in their home state, against their crowd, ACC pitcher of the year on the mound—we knew it was going to take a monumental effort,” BC head coach Todd Interdonato said. “And I thought AJ gave us that, right? I thought AJ gave us that monumental effort.”
In the end, Colarusso’s efforts weren’t enough as UNC (40–12, 18–11 Atlantic Coast) beat BC (28–29, 12–20) 7–2, capitalizing on a five-run seventh inning to knock the Eagles out of the tournament and avoid an upset.
“We felt like he was beyond what we expected him to do,” Interdonato said. “We just didn’t get it done down the stretch. But that’s a really good team, like I said, we knew it was going to take a monumental effort, you know, we were there for two-thirds of it. Just couldn’t close it out.”
BC scored in the third inning thanks to an RBI double from Patrick Roche and an RBI single from Jack Toomey. But those were the only runs the Eagles were able to score all night, as Knapp showed why he was named ACC Pitcher of the Year and shut down everything that came his way.
BC’s lack of scoring was unproblematic for the majority of the game, as UNC was equally incapable of generating runs.
But when the seventh inning rolled around, that all changed.
Colarusso walked the first batter he faced, and Interdonato immediately sent in JD Ogden.
Ogden struggled, allowing a batter to advance on a wild pitch then dealing out consecutive walks. He faced only two batters before being sent back to the dugout as Dylan Howanitz entered to relieve him.
Howanitz somehow had an even shorter stint than Ogden had—he faced just one batter, giving up a two-RBI double that got him benched as well.
It was now John Kwiatkowski’s turn. He threw a wild pitch that scored a runner, then threw an RBI single immediately after. He, too, got benched.
Peter Schaefer’s pitch ended in an RBI single before the inning was over, putting UNC up 5–2.
Then, a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth extended that lead to five.
The top of the ninth was BC’s last chance to make a comeback. Instead, the Eagles suffered a 1-2-3 inning to end the game, and their season.
“We’re just so lucky to have something that’s so hard to say goodbye to. This program has set us up for things far beyond baseball,” graduate student Vince Cimini said. “And if that doesn’t sell you on BC, I don’t know what will.”